Thaw
by conch0rd
Summary: Bethyl. Beth returns to her family with a group of girls in tow. She and Daryl meet by the fire to reconnect and share their scars.
1. Chapter 1

When he finds her (when she finds him) it is not her hair that he will recall, hours later, while he is sprawled out on the warm earth of their campsite.

Nor is it her eyes, those big spikes of blue that seem to have a physical touch about them, reaching out, warming you in your blood. He does not yet recall the swoop of dirty skin below her collarbones, the breath that is pushed out of her lips when she sees him. The girls that she has saved – young, younger than her, and far more frail – stand behind her, prepared to fight yet again another man, another threat. Some have knives, guns, while others hold only each other, too tired to do anything else.

No, it is Beth's hands that Daryl will remember as he lies next to the campfire, a few feet from the mouth of the communal tent that the girls have occupied for the night. Although there were several tents available for them (everyone in Daryl's group having offered their own) the girls had stuck close to Beth, some having reached out to her as she walked toward the largest tent. Having returned from the river with replenished canteens, Glenn had reached out to one of the girls, her long red hair waving behind her in dusty braids. He had barely brushed her shoulder when she screamed, batting away Glenn's hand and rushing to Beth's side at the front of the group.

Beth didn't blink as she turned around and swallowed the screaming girl in her arms. Her hands ran down the girl's braids again and again, gently rubbing her fingertips into the scalp, over the shells of her ears. The girl's screams subsided into whimpers, then into nothing at all. Beth took the girl's hand into hers and walked into the tent, the others shuffling inside behind her.

Glenn had looked back at the rest of the group with his hands at his sides, as though afraid to move. The canteens were scattered on the ground at his feet, dark pools of water shifting dirt into mud. Behind him, Daryl heard Rick (because by now, he knew that man's footsteps as well as his own) walking toward the canteens, picking them up and settling them into the crook of his arm. Daryl stooped to pick one up, and the sound of metal and rock ricocheted in his head, like a sneeze in a dark movie theater.

He and Rick had placed the canteens just outside the tent, resting them on the ground and walking away quickly, like food to an animal you're not quite sure of yet. After having walked over to the tent several times and retreating, Maggie shook her head and pulled closer to Glenn, who muttered something about "time" and "the right moment." Evening had come and gone, and not a sound was heard from inside the tent, though at some point a pair of arms had reached out and pulled the pile of canteens inside. Daryl wanted to get them some food, though he didn't have the faintest idea how to do so without disturbing the pall that had entered the camp along with the girls. He was heating up the venison that was leftover from earlier today though, just in case. He sat staring into the fire, watching the meat turn from a soft pink to brown.

She appeared next to him suddenly, her elbows resting on the faded denim of her jeans. She didn't look at him, but neither did she seem to look at the fire. Instead, her eyes shifted from one end of the camp to the other for several moments before finally resting on the communal tent. She cocked her head to the side as if listening and, seemingly satisfied, faced the fire. When she spoke, it was less a whisper and more like a soft scratching in the night, like the sound his mom's old record player used to make when it ran out of songs.

"Who's on guard tonight?"

Daryl had to look up to remind himself, even though he had been the very one to choose who took which shift. He cleared his throat, which sounded louder than intended in the dark pocket of night.

"Tyreese and Carol. Then Sasha. Then Abraham."

Beth looked up at him for the first time since entering the camp, her forehead creasing in pale lines. Between them, her fingers rest along the top of her – his – knife, the tip of her thumbnail jutting into the dark leather.

"New guy," he added. "He's ok."

She removed her hand, but her forehead remained creased in thought.

He wanted to tell her that she was safe, even sounded it on his head. _You're safe here, Beth. You 'n the girls. _But the words sounded fake, like those flowers they had found at the funeral home. Like the promises he had given her and – _god_, he sighs – meant to keep before that car sped down the road with her inside. It was this final image that pushed the words out.

"Beth…when we were..." His words are clumsy in his mouth, and he feels stretched thin, as though his body and his mind are no longer connected, despite years of threading the two together in the darkness of the woods. To stalk prey. To escape.

_But what am I hunting now?_ he wondered. He glanced over at Beth, the muscles of her arms curving down her skin, her hands – _those damn hands_ – stronger than he remembers them ever being. The hair that shifts down her back as she shakes her head from side to side, stopping his questions, her eyes not meeting his.

Daryl looked back at the fire, his mind offering little by way of conversation. From behind him, his ears caught the sounds of a girl's cry, then an answering _shhh_ and the muffled slide of fabric. Beth, having looked up at the sounds, rested her head on her crossed arms. Daryl had the urge to run his fingers along the slope of her neck, beneath her tangled hair. Instead, he cleared his throat and reached for the now blackened venison.

"You eat today?"

Beth looked up, resting her chin on her arms. "I'm…not really sure, honestly."

Daryl grunted a response, pulling a sizable chunk of meat off the fire. Skewering it with a reasonably clean stick, he held it out to Beth, who reached out without really looking at it. He glanced down, then set the meat back on the fire.

"You got some …" he offered, gesturing to her hands. He'd wanted to say dirt, but he knew blood when he saw it. Had seen it his whole life, back before it was everywhere, before a day brimmed with the cutting up of bodies. Back before he realized that eyes could be deadened by more than just alcohol and drugs and hate.

He cleared his throat and took a rag out of his back pocket, pouring some water on it. He was startled by the memory of a bloodstained Rick on the side of the road, and tried not to think about why.

Beth was staring down at her hands, her fingers folding in on themselves, turning them into fists that tightened and shook from the force. Daryl could hear her breathing quicken over the crackling of the fire, her head moving from side to side until her hair was a mass of yellow streaks in the night. His own breathing matching hers, Daryl quickly shoved the damp rag over her fists, kneeling on the ground in front of her and holding her hands in his grasp.

He said her name – how many times he can't be sure– and felt her still above him. When she opened her fists, he saw that her nails had dug into her skin, half moons chipping away the sheen of red on her palms, her fingers, her wrists. Daryl unwrapped the rag and began to wipe her hands down. He didn't notice that she had rested her forehead on his until she spoke, a whisper of breath against him.

"I'm so tired, Daryl."

She shifted her knees, effectively pinning Daryl in between her legs. He continued to run the rag over her hands, the water cleansing the blood away until he saw the long, red gashes underneath, the cuts deep in Beth's pale skin. He stopped his ministrations and brought his thumb up to the curve of his mouth, running his eyes over the new scars, the embedded results of self-defense, of struggling to get out, get back. Daryl could feel a pulsing behind his eyelids, and fought back the bile leaping up in his throat for what this woman had to do come this far. By this point, Beth's head had fallen to Daryl's shoulder, and her next words were muffled by the collar of his vest.

"I can hear them, you know. Like they're all stuffed in my ears. Those men. Want me to go crazy I guess." She laughed, but it was hollow, only a breath of air on his neck. "It's probably working."

Daryl responded by leaning forward and running his finger down the braid that had somehow survived within the mess of blond tangles. He closed his eyes and, taking a slow breath, placed Beth's hands at the bottom of his flannel shirt, pausing only a moment before he began to push them upwards, underneath the cloth. He heard Beth gasp the moment she realized what he was doing and began to pull her hands back. Daryl held firm, holding her by her wrists until she began to slowly run her hands along his lower back, his shoulder blades, over the scars that crisscrossed the skin there. She stretched her palms out, her hands burning like a match, like a shack burning down to embers.

"Gotta put it away," he breathed into the shell of her ear. "'Fore it kills us."

A rustle of tents would break them apart in the early moments of dawn. But for a few hours, there was only the feeling of scarred skin thawing out in the night and the fast pops of a dying fire.


	2. Chapter 2

Beth had been out cold for close to two hours by the time the rest of the camp woke up. Daryl had eased her off of his shoulder and onto his mostly clean poncho, having pried it from the body of a particularly gruesome corpse back in Terminus after the revolt. It was only after he had tucked the corners over Beth's body that he remembered how much blood was on the other side, and he was careful to make sure that none of it touched Beth's skin.

_Not that it means shit now_, he thought. He watched as her hands clutched fitfully at the loose threads of his poncho, the blood underneath her fingernails just visible in the morning sun. Probably a lesson in that, Daryl told himself. Something about having to keep yourself warm these days, even if that meant it was with someone else's blood.

_S'not that easy though,_ his brain whispered._ Not when you start off good. Not when bein' good means gettin' hurt and stabbin' people in the face is an everyday thing. _

Daryl paused, staring at the last tiny tendrils of smoke rising up from the fire. He was pretty sure Beth would come to him again. This new skin she'd taken on would itch for a while, but remorse could be armor, too. And Daryl knew a little something about armor. About turning shame into a shield.

He could do that for her, he thought. He could shine off the edges of guilt into something new, like she had done for him on that porch. Didn't know how, or whether she would even ask for his help. But he knew bad, and she wasn't it. She was red-handed – literally – but she wasn't guilty.

Daryl picked up his crossbow and walked towards Rick, who had just emerged from his tent looking groggy in the morning dusk. Daryl made sure his shoes didn't make a noise as he walked past Beth's sleeping form, her right hand outstretched beside her as though wading through a river.

"She say anything to you?" Rick asked once Daryl had made his over.

Daryl shook his head, his stooped posture echoing Rick's as they stood next to the truck at the edge of camp. The truck needed fuel badly, but yesterday's events had take precedence over the planned run. Daryl fingered his crossbow and faced toward the camp, most of which was alive with the bodies of people as they went about their chores.

"What's Michonne doing?" asked Rick.

Daryl found her in the crowd, a streak of dark amongst the pale tents. She was walking in front of the large tent of girls, back and forth, over and over. Daryl had the sudden image of a tiger striding across a field. Her katana was sheathed, though with Michonne's speed that meant very little. Any time anyone got within a few feet of the tent (Bob had walked over with a large bundle of clothes on his way to the pond) she would put both hands up, stopping them from moving closer. Though Daryl wasn't positive, he thought he saw her look over in his direction and, without losing pace, give a small nod. Deep inside, a knot that he wasn't aware of loosened a bit.

Rick nudged the dirt with the toe of his boot, his hands resting on his belt. "Wish I could tell 'em..." he sighed, and Daryl nodded his head.

"They wouldn't believe you anyway."

The former sheriff crossed his arms, his eyes on the large communal tent, standing silent as a tomb. "You know, at the police station, we'd have children come in sometimes. Different reasons. Small theft and swapped bikes. I had a rotation in that department when I first started, and I thought I had it good. Easy."

Daryl looked down at the tires of the truck, the threads like hairs, like the teeth of his mom's old brush.

"But then this girl came in. Christ, she was just a kid. And I don't even say anything before I'm reaching for the report sheet. She didn't say anythin' at all. Just stood there, staring back at me, those eyes…almost like knives, the way they cut right into you. Couldn't even write her name when I handed her the report. Just started shaking her head, like she was confused, like she didn't have it no more. Like someone had come in and taken it."

His voice wavered, the skin on the back of his neck his raw from the sun.

Daryl cleared his throat. "Who was she?"

Rick shook his head, tapping his knuckles against the glass of the truck softly. "I don't know. Passed her off to the next shift. Didn't think about it again 'til what almost happened to Carl. Wanted to get home, I guess."

Daryl placed his hand on Rick's shoulder, and heard him take a deep breath. When Rick looked up, his eyes were rimmed with red.

"They're just girls, Daryl. The youngest maybe fourteen."

Daryl lifted his hand off his friend's shoulder and placed both of them on the cool metal of the truck, only now realizing how much they were shaking, the blood humming in his veins at the image of faceless men doing faceless things in the dark. He'd have to hunt today, he decided. Get this thrumming out from beneath his fingernails.

"Ain't girls no more," Daryl said.

And it wasn't until he was walking back into camp that his words caught up with him. That if those girls weren't girls anymore, then Beth wasn't either. Which meant that Beth was something else entirely. Something that seemed all the more real and frightening…and compelling.

Daryl shook his head, suddenly unsure of the way his feet were taking him back toward Beth's still sleeping figure. He was relieved when he caught Glenn's eye as the man was walking out of the woods.

"Hey man, how 'bout that run?"


	3. Chapter 3

When Daryl makes it back to camp with dinner, he is unsure what he will find. For weeks, it has been the same, like a song stuck on repeat in your head: wash clothes, cook food, prop tents, map out trail, walk, camp, and repeat. Today, however, is unclear, wiped free of agendas.

Maggie is holding onto Beth at the edge of camp, her long, tan arms enveloping her younger sister tightly. He can't see Beth's face because it is burrowed into Maggie's neck, the height difference between the two women more pronounced than he's ever seen it. It's difficult not to stare at the intimate embrace, especially when he is close enough to hear the urgent whispers that are being offered between the sisters like an improvised duet.

"I didn't know…"

"How could you have…"

"I thought you were…"

"I never thought I'd…"

"I missed you."

"I missed you."

And that's all that is said between the two women for now, though Daryl can almost hear the questions that aren't being asked. The _how_'s and the _why_'s are practically ricocheting behind Maggie's eyes, and he can see how much she wants to fill in the gaps of her sister's last few months. But she stays silent, and for that Daryl is thankful.

The group of girls is sitting around the fire, some of them looking into it like they haven't seen one in months. Daryl wants to approach them, but knows that doing so wouldn't be the best idea right now. Not when each of them is huddled into each other, shifting their eyes from side to side like scared dogs.

Daryl watches as Michonne sits down beside the red-haired girl from yesterday – the one who screamed in terror when Glenn got too close. The girl doesn't say anything, but she doesn't cower away either. From somewhere behind her, Michonne pulls out a pail of water that she must have lugged from the nearby lake and sets it down in front of the girl, who looks at it like it's about to sprout wings. Michonne lifts quietly from her seat – as though she could move any other way – and walks a few feet from the fire, where she plants herself to sharpen her knives.

Having unwrapped herself from Maggie, Beth receives a number of hugs from the others, Glenn lifting her off the ground until she erupts into giggles, which Daryl thinks is the best thing he's heard in a long time. When Rick walks over with Judith, however, Beth's smile sinks, her arms falling to her sides. She takes two steps back before she seems to realize what she's doing.

"Beth, what's wrong?"

Rick's question echoes everyone's blank stares. Beth simply stares at Judith, and it's difficult to interpret – even for Daryl – just what she's feeling.

"I can't," she says. "I'm sorry. I…just can't."

It is when Judith reaches for her that Beth continues to walk backwards, her hands stuffed into her pockets. Rick looks down at his daughter, then at the others. Daryl can tell that he is hurt by Beth's reaction but, ever the peacemaker, Rick nods his head slowly and wraps his arms more tightly around Judith.

"That's fine, Beth. No problem. Not at all."

The group breaks apart from the scene, each of them trying to catch the others' eye. Daryl himself avoids looking at anyone, and instead watches as Beth sits down next to the other girls at the fire. When she sits down, the red-haired girl leans closer, almost nuzzling into her side. Beth settles the water pail left by Michonne in front of her and reaches for the girl's hands, sliding them into the cool water. The girl immediately tries to pull them away, but Beth holds them firm. In a whisper that he has not heard since god knows when, Beth begins to sing.

_Crossroads, seem to come and go._

_The gypsy flies from coast to coast._

_Knowing many, loving none,_

_Bearing sorrow havin' fun._

_But back home he'll always run_

_To sweet Melissa…_

The song seems to sooth the girl, who now holds her hands into the water without struggle. Beth begins to rub them with her own hands, the dirt falling away into the water. She continues to sing as she lifts the girl's long red hair and runs her hands along the back of her neck.

_Crossroads, will you ever let him go?_

_Will you hide the dead man's ghost?_

_Or will he lie, beneath the clay,_

_or will his spirit float away?_

But I know that he won't stay without Melissa.

_Yes I know that he won't stay without Melissa. _

When the girl lifts her hands away from the water, Michonne is standing there with a fresh pail. Beth looks up at the woman, and Michonne is watching her with the kind of eyes that Daryl has only seen once on the woman. After running into Joe's men, holding onto Carl in that car like he was this precious thing, running her fingers through his hair for hours. _A protectiveness_, Daryl deduced. That's what Michonne was offering here.

Beth accepted the pail and handed the woman the used one, her hands stilling when they touched Michonne's hand. Beth offered a real, genuine smile to her before gesturing towards the next girl in the row, who dunked her hands into the water before resting her head onto Beth's shoulder. Like before, Beth began to sing, her slow, soft voice filling the air.

_There's a port on a western bay_

_And it serves a hundred ships a day._

_Lonely sailors pass the time away_

_And talk about their homes._

And there's a girl in this harbor town

_And she works layin' whiskey down._

_They say "Brandy, fetch another round"_

_She serves them whiskey and wine…_

And on and on, each girl cleansing her hands into the water, Beth singing, new water carried in, for hours and hours. It is not until the fourth girl that Daryl realizes that the songs have been matched with the names of the girls themselves. Melissa. Brandy. Suzanne. Alex. With some names, it's clear that Beth has had to make up her own, but each of them seems to work. Despite the many things that need to get done that day, Daryl has found himself unable to move from his perch across the camp. Though the others have seemed to actually contribute today – Maggie takes inventory of the weapons, Carol and Bob have crisscrossed the camp collecting laundry, Carl has spent the day trying to memorize the maps that they've collected over the past few weeks – each of them have at one point or another stopped to take in the scene around the campfire.

It is nightfall when the washing is done, and Beth sits alone at the fire. When he sits down next to her, he can see that her hands are wrinkled from the amount of time they have spent in the water.

"It was a way to get them to sleep," she offers. "Like on those bad days – the really bad ones – it was all I could do to help. Then they kind of got addicted to 'em."

Beth looks over at him, her lips tight around that smile that seemed altogether sad and expectant.

"Guess I found a use for the whole 'singin' in public thing'."

Daryl stares at his feet, his cheeks red and raw from the memory of when he threw those words at her, accusing her of singing like everything was fun, a big game. He shakes his head, unable to process just how wrong he was at the time.

"I was bein' an ass. Should'a never said that to you."

"I know. And you _were_ being an ass."

She smiles, and he takes a breath that makes him feel good, deep down on the inside. From somewhere within Rick's tent, he hears Judith's quiet cries. Beth begins to tap her fingers along the rim of the water pail, only stopping when the baby is silent once again. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"A'right?" Daryl asks.

She stares at the fire. "There were some with us. Babies, I mean. And…" her breaths begin to come in short gasps, her chest rising and falling in spurts. Daryl places his hand at the small of her back, and tightens his other hand on the arm closet to him. "And they just…they just took 'em and…"

Daryl doesn't want to hear anymore, his mind already racing ahead to fill in the gaps for him. But she's still talking, and he can do little but hold her, his arms fitting easily around her body, which shivers now with each ragged breath. His body seems to be offering itself without his knowledge, as though his head he has no say in the matter.

"I couldn't do anything," she continues. "Nothing. You know, there's nothin' to babies. They're just these…big eyes and some cartilage and skin. It's nothin' to a…a knife. Almost like tissue paper."

Tears fell in long streaks down her cheeks, her neck, into the collar of her shirt. Daryl lets his head fall, and absently rubs circles along her back. Later, she will tell him about the baby that looked just like Judith, down to the blue eyes that were so like Rick's. She will describe the way she would hide the girl away at night, keeping her quiet, tucked into the circle of her arms. And the night that she failed to do so, the men coming and the men taking and the high-pitched wail cut short. The terror that filled her when she saw Judith again, knowing that she would not be able to protect her, just as she had not been able to protect the others.

But that would come later, when the fire was spent and Daryl had still not talked himself out of holding onto Beth's body, his thumb dipped slightly underneath the hem of her shirt. And it was only after Daryl had surprised them both by whispering a song into the night that he remembered from when his mom used to sing while sweeping the kitchen when his dad wasn't in the house. With Beth's head tucked underneath his chin, he murmurs softly the only words he can recall.

_Beth, I hear you callin'_

_But I can't come home right now._

_Me and the boys are playin'_

_And we just can't find the sound._

_You say you feel so empty_

_That our house just ain't a home._

_And I'm always somewhere else._

_And you're always there alone._

Aware of the consequences, of the things that will happen if he allows himself this, Daryl finds himself tugging gently on Beth's hair, leaning her head towards him until her ear is just touching his lips. When he breathes the next few lines onto her skin, he feels her shudder beside him, her hands grasping tightly onto his jacket.

_Just a few more hours_

_And I'll be right home to you._

_I think I hear them callin'._

_Oh, Beth what can I do?_

_Beth what can I do?_

As they look at each other across the fire, Daryl suddenly hopes that Beth will answer him just that. And soon.

**AN: Thank you so much for the kind reviews, favorites, and follows. This is my first fanfiction attempt, and I appreciate the encouragement. As you may have noticed, I have bumped up the rating to M, as the future...erm...encounters between these two beauties are keeping me up at night. I am unsure how long this story will continue, but I am enjoying seeing how it plays out (and I hope you are as well). ****Please leave a comment with your thoughts, as I love reading them!**


	4. Chapter 4

When his fist collides with the boy's cheekbone, he doesn't hear him cry out. Nor does he catch the gush of air that falls out of the asshole when his knee connects with his stomach, sending him into a spiral towards the ground. The only sound that reaches past the roar inside his head is the splintering scream coming from the girl – Brandy – as she cries out.

"You fuckin' prick," Daryl bites out, his lower lip bloody from when the boy got his first – and only – shot at him moments after Daryl had found him holding Brandy down in his tent, his fingers wrapped around her red hair like snakes. The boy had turned towards the sound of the tent flap opening and tried to shove the girl away, only to be pulled backwards by his boots out of the tent. Daryl had gotten a sick thrill at knowing that the boy's dick had probably still been out when he was dragged across the camp.

From behind him, he could feel arms trying to hold him back, but he hadn't spent most of his life carrying deer carcasses around for nothing. He easily shoved whoever it was away, jumping forward and shoving his right boot into the boy's ribs over and over, his body hunched inwards to protect himself. He brought his boot up and rested it on the boy's neck, pushing down with his heel until the boy's face was red, his eyes bugging out and looking at nothing in particular.

Daryl looked up. He could see Rick standing in front of him, his left hand on his holster. He was saying stop or wait or hold up. Same with Maggie and Tyreese and Carol, who were all standing and breathing heavily around him. His friends' pleas were stretching themselves across the dull roar in his head, and he slowly began to lift his foot. Only when he found Beth in the crowd did he still. Because she was looking up from the ground where she was holding Brandy, and she wasn't saying stop. She wasn't saying anything. She just sat, her arms around the girl and her eyes focused on the asshole on the ground with a hatred that he'd never seen on her face before. The revulsion simmering out of her face – he almost didn't recognize her.

Suddenly she looked up and noticed him staring. The disgust fell from her face and she glanced away quickly, a red tint cradling her cheeks. It was then that Daryl felt Rick's hand fall heavily on his shoulder and push him backwards, his boot lifting from the boy, who took several fitful gulps of breath in response.

"We got it from here. Walk it off."

Daryl heeded Rick's advice, but not before leaning down and grabbing the boy's shirt collar, lifting him off of the ground and bringing his face very close.

"Y' do that again, we take y' right back to your Termite friends. Serve y' up like they wanted t' for' we saved your ass." Daryl drew his knife, pressing it into the soft skin of the boy's belly. "Y' got tha' cupcake?"

The boy nodded his head quickly, shifting his feet fitfully in an attempt to get away from the knife. Daryl dropped him back to the ground, sheathing the weapon as he turned and walked away. From behind him, he could hear Rick questioning the boy – Mike something, apparently – and Daryl was sure his friend would know the right way to handle this. Daryl wanted to talk to Beth, but she was still back with the others holding onto Brandy, who would need to tell them at least a little of what had happened. He wasn't sure what he would to Beth say anyway. Wasn't real clear why Beth had looked that way, the rage shooting out of her skin like heat waves on a sidewalk.

Or perhaps he was sure. He'd seen that look on his own face, after all. Had felt a burning rage in his body after his dad had done something to deserve it, when the only action he wanted to take was a physical one. When there wasn't any room for forgiveness or words. Just the deep satisfaction of hurting someone who hurt you.

But to see that look on Beth's face was unsettling, and not because he knew her as the optimistic one (_isn't that beautiful?_), the forgiving one (_you gotta put it away_), the _good people_ left in the world. He had known from the second she had stepped back into camp that she was more than that, had made herself be more than that out of survival.

_No_, he decided, picking up his crossbow and lumbering into the woods. It's because a stupid, sick part of him _wanted_ to see that look on her face. That thirst for blood, like a dog catching that first scent in the night. That look – it's what he understood, what he had lived with his whole life. It was somehow easier that way, to divide the world into the hunted and the hunter. To offer life or death, with no in between.

He'd wanted to kill that scumbag. Bury him into the ground and leave him for the walkers. And for one horrible second – when he had seen the revulsion in Beth's eyes, not for him but for the asshole himself – he'd wanted to make her proud. Make her smile up at him in a way that said _you did it. You did it for me and I liked it. Thank you. Thank you. _

It isn't until he gets deep into the woods that he throws up. Over the snot and the tears and the hacking of his own throat he thinks he sees blue eyes from somewhere far off, only they are tainted with iron, like contaminated water. Like a blue marker that's bled into grey.

**AN: A shorter chapter, I know. But an important one that will have repercussions throughout the story. As you may have guessed, this story will be a bit darker than many of the other stories in the canon. Beth is returning from somewhere very traumatic, and thus she is not the same person she was when she was taken. We'll find out more about that journey, and I hope I can do her - and Daryl - justice. He's going to help her re-establish herself within the camp, but it's not going to be as easy as other fics have witnessed. Slow burn, people. Slow burn. As always, thank you for reading! **

**Reviews make the flowers grow.**


End file.
